


Adults Take

by kateandbarrel



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Hate Sex, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 03:07:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1882794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kateandbarrel/pseuds/kateandbarrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bass Monroe and Charlie Matheson are stuck in a Patriot jail cell together. They let out their frustrations on each other, through words and other things.</p>
<p>Takes place in kind of a vague late season 2 time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adults Take

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladyoneill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyoneill/gifts).



> Not-particularly-graphic canon-typical sex and violence within. 
> 
> I hope you like it, ladyoneill!

Bass Monroe was no stranger to the inside of jail cells. Pre-apocalypse and post-apocalypse, pre-fake-death and post-fake-death, cells with windows and cells without, jails with reasonable, intelligent guards and jails with the stupidest backwater hick guards to be found anywhere in the lower 48. He’d done it all; experienced every flavor of jail out there. Except _this_ one: forced to share a cell with the most annoying person he’s ever known.

No, not Miles. Monroe only wished it was Miles. He knew how to talk to Miles. Even when they hated each other, they could laugh together. But Charlie? Charlie Matheson? What was he supposed to do with that?

“Would you stop scowling at me?” Charlie snapped from where she sat on the lone bed in the cell. She could feel every time Monroe threw a dirty look her way. “I don’t like this situation any more than you do.”

“Then I guess you shouldn’t have got us caught,” Monroe snapped.

“Excuse me? Who’s the idiot who tripped over his own two feet and fell into a bush, making enough noise to bring the Patriots running?” 

“That’s not how I remember it,” Monroe grumbled. 

Charlie rolled her eyes but she didn’t bother to argue the point. Monroe had a knack for “remembering” things a certain way, and no amount of arguing would set him straight. It was better just to pick her battles, and this one wasn’t important right now.

All they had to do was wait. Their little recon mission was long overdue, and Miles and Rachel would be looking for them. They’d figure out quickly the Patriots had them, and then it was a matter of time before Charlie and Monroe were broken out of this crappy little cell, and then the two of them could go back to ignoring each other’s existence as much as possible.

Monroe paced the cell, rubbing his hand over his face now and again. The sound of his footsteps on the concrete floor went in a regular _tap tap tap,_ turn, _tap tap tap._ Like Charlie, he knew Miles would come for them… eventually. But in the meantime, he was stuck like a bug in a jar. 

_Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap._

“Would you quit that?” Charlie shouted. “You’re driving me nuts!”

Like a bug in a jar with another really annoying bug.

He stopped pacing and turned to look at her. “Yeah, well, your face is driving _me_ nuts.”

“Good comeback,” Charlie snorted. “How old are you again?”

Monroe was about to say something else - Charlie was sure it was going to be something as scathing as “shut up” - but he was cut off by a door opening. A couple Patriot soldiers poured into the larger room which housed their cell, guns at the ready, fingers over the triggers. 

Charlie stood up and stood shoulder to shoulder with Monroe. They might hate each other, but it was better to show a united front to the Patriots. That would keep them both alive. Not that Charlie _really_ cared about Monroe, but Miles would be inconsolable for probably up to several whole days if he died. Maybe even a week.

She couldn’t help but let a little smirk emerge at her own internal joke.

One of the Patriots noticed. “What’s so funny?” he asked.

“Your face,” she replied, pulling an insult out of Monroe’s lexicon.

“Laugh it up,” he said. He nodded at another soldier, who pointed his gun at her from outside the cell. “You’ll need these memories of the good times.”

He fished a key off a keyring, and opened the cell. A third soldier pointed his gun at Monroe. 

“Monroe, come with us. You stay here.” He pointed at Charlie with this last statement, and the soldier with the gun kept her in place until Monroe was outside of the cell, and the door locked behind him. “Don’t look so worried sweetheart. Your boyfriend will be back in one piece. Well, maybe more than one piece.”

Charlie scoffed. She wouldn’t mind if he never came back. But she didn’t say that out loud - united front. Really, though, she didn’t even expect him to come back. Monroe had enemies everywhere, and the entire Patriots’ forces was one of the biggest ones. She wouldn’t be surprised if they killed him. And that was fine with her.

***

Monroe was gone for a couple hours. When they brought him back - dragged him back, really - Charlie was was surprised to see him again.

And maybe more surprised to realize that she was a tiny bit relieved. For Miles’ sake, of course. 

She pushed all of those thoughts out of her head when the soldiers dumped Monroe on the floor. Charlie pushed on his shoulder with her foot until he rolled onto his back. His face was red and lumpy, blood dripped and smeared from cuts on his cheeks and a split lip. There was a red line across his throat, as if someone had tried to choke him with a rope. 

The cell door closed with a loud _clang_. The first soldier grinned down at Monroe’s semi-conscious form on the ground. “See? He’s fine. One piece. This time.” 

The soldiers left, and Charlie kneeled down besides Monroe’s head. He blinked a few times and groaned, and seemed to pass out again. Or at least, he was lost in the sensations of pain he was feeling. Charlie didn’t know what to do for him. She had no water or bandages, and definitely no painkillers. The floor was probably uncomfortable, but she knew she didn’t have the strength to drag him over and up onto the bed. She should just let him lay there anyway, she reasoned. He was a murderer and a tyrant, and he deserved it.

“You deserve this,” she whispered down at him. 

Charlie left him on the floor and sat on the bed. He didn’t move or say anything in response. She stared at the wall and ignored the vague Monroe-shaped form in the corner of her vision. She cracked every one of her knuckles, in turn. She recited the alphabet, forwards and backwards. She counted all the bars on the walls and door of the cell. She completely failed to avoid thinking about Monroe in a stupid, banged-up lump on the ground three feet away from her.

“Damnit,” she muttered.

Charlie got up and sat back on the floor next to Monroe. She hesitantly reached out, then prodded him on the shoulder. Her jostling made his head wobble, but otherwise he didn’t respond. She had a brief thought that he was dead, and she was sitting next to a corpse. She stuck her fingers into his neck, and was relieved to find a pulse there. She took a firmer hold of his shoulder this time, and shook him harder. 

“Monroe,” she said. “Monroe!” 

His eyes fluttered open; normally sharp and blue, they were unfocused and cloudy as Monroe stared up at the ceiling. “I’m sleeping,” he said. Whispered, more like. The choking must have done some damage to his throat, because his voice was scratchy and faint.

“No sleeping. Wake up.” Charlie scooted closer to him and lifted his shoulders with the intent of laying his upper body on her lap.

“Ow, damnit,” Monroe hissed as she moved his head around. “Be gentle.”

“Sorry, I forgot how much of a delicate flower you are.” She finished positioning him so that he was partially laying on her, his head against her chest, and most of his upper body off the cold, hard floor. 

Her uncle owed her, big time.

They sat there for a few minutes, Charlie already pretty much regretting her sympathetic action once the feeling was starting to go out of her feet. But she stayed motionless, listening to Monroe’s crackly breaths. It was somehow comforting; better than the silence and thought he might be dead, anyway.

“Charlie?” Monroe asked.

“What?”

“Is my head on your boobs right now?”

She should have shoved him back onto the floor right then, but the question was so stupid, so juvenile… she laughed, hard.

“Hey, ow, stop laughing,” Monroe said, but Charlie could hear he was laughing too, a raspy laugh.

“I hate you so much,” Charlie said in between her last lingering chuckles.

Monroe readjusted his head until he was comfortable again - perhaps taking a few seconds longer than necessary snuggling his head against her chest, the creep. “Yeah, but you like that you hate me.”

Charlie made a _what the hell_ face, not that Monroe could see it. “What?” she asked instead.

“You and me have been enemies for a long time, and here we are, cuddling on a concrete floor in a jail cell. There’s at least four cockroaches within spitting distance, neither of us have bathed for days, and we’re probably gonna die soon. If not by the Patriots today, then something. Some other bad guy tomorrow. Old age, or a bad infection. This world really sucks.”

“Are you going somewhere with this?”

“You’re angry the world sucks, and you need somewhere to focus that anger. I’m a handy target. It’s hard to hate the whole world, but it’s easy to hate me.” 

Charlie snorted. “And here I was thinking I hated you because you’re the reason my brother’s dead.”

“I thought you blamed your mother for that,” Monroe said.

“Sure. And you. And Neville.” Charlie thought for a second. “You know, you’re wrong. It’s actually pretty _easy_ to hate the whole world.”

Monroe shook his head. “If you say so.”

“You are so narcissistic.” 

“You’re not the first to say that to me. You’re not even the first today.”

Charlie looked down at him, curious. “What happened with the Patriots?”

“Apparently, the one guy’s son was one of my soldiers in the Monroe Republic.” Monroe shrugged. “I guess he died. I ordered him to do something, or he died in some gun fight. I don’t know. Honestly I wasn’t really listening to his rantings.”

“Killing people’s kids _is_ kind of a pastime of yours,” Charlie said matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, cause that’s what I did. I said, this kid right here, his dad is some douchebag in the Patriot army. I’m gonna kill this kid, because screw that guy. You got me, Charlie.” 

“Well, try not being a dictator. Oh wait, I guess you aren’t anymore. You lost your empire. You lost everything. Even your own kid hates you.”

Monroe closed his eyes. They ached - his whole face ached - but mostly, he was tired. “I’m not dead yet. Can the listing of my faults at least wait until I’m at the pearly gates?”

“Fine,” Charlie said. “Get up. I’m tired of holding your dead weight.”

Groaning, Monroe eased himself into a kneeling position, then accepted Charlie’s arm to help him get to his feet. She shuffled him towards the bed, where he dropped down onto it with as much grace as a sack of potatoes thrown to the ground from a second story window. 

“They’re not turning us over,” Monroe said. “Dad of the year wants to smack me around some more. Payback for junior. If he turns me over, he doesn’t get the chance.”

Charlie considered this. “This is good news.”

Monroe scoffed. “Oh yeah, great. Great news. I can’t wait til he starts cutting off my fingers.”

“Are you an idiot? The longer we stay in one place, the easier it will be for Miles and my mom to find us.”

“This guy’s gonna kill me, Charlie.”

“Not right away, by your own account,” Charlie reasoned. “We have time.”

Monroe watched Charlie as she took up the position he’d had a few hours ago, pacing the floor of the cell, back and forth. He was going to make a joke about that, but the rhythmic sound of her feet on the ground combined with the heaviness in his head lulled him to sleep instead. 

***

_They were taking him away again. Dragging him out of the cell, punching him, kicking him, choking the life out of him. He tried to fight back but there were too many of them, and he was weak and tired. He couldn’t fight back._

_He was crying; he was pathetic. There were tears running down his face and into his mouth. He was - he was wet - ?_

Monroe coughed and sputtered as he came into consciousness, water spilling out of his mouth. Charlie was leaning above him, grinning.

“Wake up already. They finally gave us some food.”

Monroe sat up, wiping at the liquid running down his face. There was a pitcher of water on the ground next to a couple bowls of what could only be described as gruel, and Charlie held an empty cup in her hand. 

“The wakeup calls in this place sucks,” Monroe grumbled. He grabbed the glass from her and made for the pitcher of water. 

Charlie picked up her bowl and sat on the bed. She picked at the contents, which seemed to be some sort of rice-corn-water mix. It was cold, and flavorless. She was hungry, but this was less than appetizing. Now that she’d had water, her basic needs felt a little more fulfilled.

She eyed Monroe’s ass as he bent over the water. 

Well, nearly all her basic needs.

Charlie shook her head at herself. _Gross._ But, a warm body was a warm body...

Monroe picked up his own bowl and sat next to her on the bed.

“Go somewhere else,” Charlie said. “It’s my turn with the bed.”

“There’s plenty of space here. Didn’t your mom teach you how to share?”

“Kids share. Adults take.”

Monroe raised an eyebrow. “Nice outlook.”

“It’s not really an outlook.” Charlie sighed at her unappetizing bowl of food and put it on the floor. “It’s just a fact of life.”

Monroe had done his best to make his peace with the shitty world they lived in. He tried not to dwell on the past, or what could have been. But looking at Charlie - her long blonde hair unkempt, wearing decades-old clothes riddled with patched holes, without a formal education much past what, second grade? Third? - Monroe couldn’t help but think where she would be right now if the electricity had never gone out.

She’d probably still be at college. Charlie was pretty, so she’d have a lot of friends and boyfriends. She probably wouldn’t be such a bitch if she grew up normally, so she would be in a sorority and volunteer her time at the local adorable tiny animal shelter and help the elderly cross the street. Her hair would be shiny, and her skin fair, and she’d smile a lot more.

Monroe put his own bowl of food on the ground, suddenly not hungry anymore.

He and Charlie sat on the bed, not talking. There were no windows in the cell or in the outer room. He knew they’d been there at least a day, but he wasn’t sure how long beyond that. Or maybe he was wrong and it hadn’t been that long at all. Time passed slowly when you were bored, and it became even harder to track when you were passed out for much of it.

“I’m bored,” Monroe said to Charlie, though he mostly just sort of spoke at the wall.

“What do you want me to do about it?” Charlie had to have been half Monroe’s age, and yet, she felt like she was looking after a toddler. Christ.

“I dunno. Entertain me.”

“Sure. I’ll call the soldiers over and let them know you’re ready for round two of your beatings. That sound like fun?”

“Not especially, no.”

“Miles and my mom will be here any minute.” Charlie paused and looked around. Monroe did the same. Nothing happened.

“Yep,” Monroe agreed. “Any minute now. Unless these guys are smarter than the average Patriot and managed to hide their trail.”

“Why’d you have to go and say that?” Charlie asked. “Next time they take you, by the way, try to grab something.”

“Like what?”

“Anything. A safety pin, a pen. Anything we could use to try and jimmy this lock, or whatever.”

“Sure no problem. I’ll just ask them nicely to please leave me coherent enough so I can steal office supplies on my way out the door.”

Charlie looked up at the ceiling and counted backwards from ten. _Do not kill Monroe. Do not kill Monroe._ She looked over at him. “I’m just trying to get us out of here.”

“Well, I might be able to get _you_ out of here,” Monroe said.

Charlie looked at him in confusion.

“When they come again, I’ll just make a ruckus. Drag them all into a fight. They don’t want to shoot me because they want to take their time torturing me. So they’ll be distracted with me. You take the chance to run.”

“Stupid plan.”

“And the shopping trip to Office Depot is such a grand one?”

Charlie shook her head. She hated when people in the older generations made those kinds of references. She usually didn’t quite get them. And they were a reminder that there used to be a time when you just went to a nice store and bought things like pens and almost nobody tried to kill you. She was almost jealous of people like Monroe, who had gotten to live most of their lives in relative luxury.

“I hate you,” Charlie said.

“Say it a few more times, maybe you’ll start to believe it.” Monroe smirked. 

She narrowed her eyes at him; at his stupid, smug, beat-up face. His sharp blue eyes full of amusement. His… his… dumb curly hair. _Fuck._ Why did he have to be such an asshole and so attractive at the same time? And why did she have to be so bored and so horny? 

“Damnit,” she said to nobody in particular before slipping onto Monroe’s lap, straddling him. 

Charlie was kissing him before he even had any clue what was going on. Monroe’s thought processes were unsurprisingly simple, going from confusion, to _tongue, there’s a tongue in my mouth_ , to acceptance. 

She gripped her hands onto his shoulders, digging her nails in almost too hard. She bit him on the lip, right where it was split from his Patriot-dispensed beating, and he yelped. Charlie pulled back and grinned. It was a dark grin, one he’d never seen on her before. 

He was into it.

“You like pain, huh?” Monroe asked. 

“I like _your_ pain,” Charlie replied. She threaded her hand into his hair and tugged, bending his neck back at a slight angle. She traced her finger along the red mark on his neck, then kissed him again. 

He moved his hands up her sides, under her shirt, feeling her skin. It wasn’t really soft, and neither were his hands. It seemed appropriate. Monroe’s hands reached her breasts and he squeezed them through her bra.

He didn’t even care that it was Charlie goddamn Matheson on his lap, kissing him. He didn’t care that they hated each other, that he’d fucked her mom or that she’d fucked his son. It was all screwed up. So what? What _wasn’t?_

Charlie was going through her own set of rationalizations. Monroe had messed up so much of her life. He was like a cockroach that just wouldn’t die, always crawling back into the light at the most inopportune moment, leaving a trail of disease in his wake. He at least owed her this outlet for a little boredom and frustration.

They clung to each other and kissed each other as aggressively as they could. Eventually, they started shedding clothes, or at least the pertinent pieces. His pants and underwear joined hers on the ground, and their bodies joined together not long after that. 

Neither of them wanted it slow or loving. It was rough, and fast. Charlie didn’t say much, other than to call Monroe names, and he just let the words wash over him. She wasn’t really wrong, and she could have called him anything as long as she kept riding him like _that_. The kissing stopped, and then it was just raw movement. They lost track of where one person’s limbs ended and another’s began.

Charlie didn’t last long, and Monroe came soon after. They didn’t say anything as they cleaned themselves up and got dressed again, but it was a satiated silence at least.

Once she was put back together, Charlie stretched and sat back on the bed. She felt more relaxed now. Clearer-headed. Monroe took his position back on the bed next to her, sitting cross-legged. He wished he had a cigarette right then.

“Not bad, eh?” Monroe asked.

Charlie laughed at the question. Men had such fragile egos. “It wasn’t terrible. Besides, I did most of the work. But don’t get your hopes up for a repeat performance.”

“Sure,” Monroe said. “Whatever you say.”

They’d only been sitting there for a few minutes when the sound of gunfire rang through the air. It was muffled and distant, but still clearly from within the building.

“Shit,” Charlie said, jumping to her feet. “They’re here! I told you.”

“I’ll be damned.”

They stood waiting at the door to the cell, hearing the cracks of gunshots and the dull thud of fists-on-faces as they grew louder and closer. Eventually, Miles and Rachel burst through the door. Miles had a ring of keys dangling from a finger.

“Shit, am I glad to see you,” Monroe said. He realized he may have sounded a bit too eager, so he hastily amended, “for once.”

Charlie rolled her eyes. “You guys took your sweet time.”

“Hey, ninety percent of my time is spent rescuing people from jails and hostage situations. It takes some time,” Miles said. He started trying keys on the ring in the cell door.

“There was only a few of them, but more might be coming,” Rachel said from her spot by the door. She kept peeking out into the hallway to look for more soldiers.

“I doubt it,” Monroe said. He pointed at his bruised face. “One of ‘em had a personal grudge against me. I got the feeling it was going to be a long term project.”

“Well then, you’re welcome,” Miles said drily. He finally got the door open and stood back as Monroe and Charlie filed out. He narrowed his eyes as they walked by, the smells they carried with them being of a particular familiar nature.

“What have you two been up to?” Miles asked suspiciously.

“Having sex, obviously,” Charlie said, sounding bored.

Monroe’s eyes opened wide in surprise at her honesty, but Charlie started laughing, and Miles joined in a second later. Miles put his arm around her and they walked off. Monroe couldn’t believe that worked. (And maybe it didn’t fully, considering the way Rachel gave him the stink-eye.) He watched them head for the door.

Charlie turned around to look at Monroe, still standing alone by the cell. “Hey, tall, dark, and douchebag. Coming?”

Monroe grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”


End file.
